Into the Wild: Karkaroff's Story
by TariGondoro
Summary: After fleeing Hogwarts during the third task, Karkaroff must survive in a completely unfamiliar world. However, he discovers that he can never get far enough away from the world he once knew. Revised, Revamped, and COMPLETED! Please rr.
1. Into the Wild

Chapter 1: Into the Wild   
  
He sat alone in his cabin, twirling his goatee. His sitting room was thinly draped with furs, mostly black. The wind, chilled by the water in the lake, managed to find its way through the woodwork of the ship to his cabin. He shivered and pulled the furs closer around him.  
  
He had no one to go to – most of his old friends he betrayed, the rest trusted him less than he trusted Rita Skeeter. His face searched blankly around his cabin for an answer, any answer. Perhaps he might find it at the bottom of the flagon he was holding. He took a long draft of the mead in his hands, and hugged his knees to his chest. He was alone.  
  
Something formidable smacked against the side of the boat, waking him from his introspective reverie. 'I cannot wait to get away from this god-awful squid,' he said to himself, throwing a pillow at the wall. 'Away from this school, away from that pompous, muggle-loving fool, and away from –' Mid- thought and without warning, he suddenly clutched his left forearm to his body, dropping the flagon of mead onto the wooden floor of the ship. It rolled away under his desk, and he collapsed, writhing from the pain emanating from his upper forearm. He let out a cry that reverberated across the Hogwarts grounds. Slowly, slowly, the pain subsided, leaving him whimpering on the floor, curled up in the fetal position.  
  
On the other side of the grounds, in the stands of the old Quidditch pitch, now hidden beneath a maze, one teacher looked up at the cry. One teacher alone knew from whence it came, for he felt it also. Snape gingerly touched the searing pain on his forearm, but his face betrayed nothing of the agony he felt. His deep black eyes were wells of determination, of courage. He remained impassive.  
  
Back on the ancient ship, Karkaroff struggled to a sitting position, and carefully, slowly, scared of what he would see, pulled his robe up past his elbow. It was blacker than he ever remembered it. Still glistening with sweat, he looked at the mark on his arm. The sight of it made him nauseous.  
  
His thin frame slumped back onto the floor, pulling the furs wet with mead around him, seeking comfort. He did not know what to do. He had no one to go to. He had nowhere to hide. He was old, alone, and broken.  
  
He heard ungainly, clomping steps make their way down his corridor. His door creaked as it was pushed open by a boy with chubby, clumsy fingers.  
  
"Esti tu bine , Profesor?" the boy asked uncaringly, a vacant look in his deep-set eyes.  
  
"Poliakoff? Energie, a lua afara! Get OUT! Out, I say!"  
  
Karkaroff slammed the door in Poliakoff's face and grabbed his wand from the desk, stabbing a shaking hand at his trunk. It shuddered on the floor and then flung itself open. He ran frantically about the room, haphazardly launching the shiniest and most expensive things into his trunk with his wand.  
  
Leaving his cabin and prodding his heavy trunk in front of him, he scurried up the narrow passageways of the ship, knocking another student, Mihaylov, back into her cabin.  
  
"Uff! Profesor! Ce is care merge? Profesor?"  
  
He did not answer her, but instead continued his rampage, bumping into walls, until he was out on the deck of the Durmstrang ship. Without looking back at the small group of very confused students on the deck, he strode off across the grounds, past the Whomping Willow, and into the Forbidden Forest.  
  
Karkaroff's arrogant and angry footfalls reverberated off the black, looming trees around him. They quickly quieted down as he drew deeper into the forest. He became timid and scared, fearful of what his noisy rampage might attract, and what sort of meal would be made of him for that which he attracted. The distant yells and screams emanating from the Quidditch pitch soon died out, and the only sounds he heard were ones he tried desperately to ignore. His eyes darted around; he was startled by every shadow. He kept glancing behind him, fearful of what he would see, fearful of not knowing, repeating the _lumos_ spell almost unceasingly.  
  
Soon enough, the panic started to take him. He could not bear the fear of the unknown that surrounded him indefinitely; it gnawed at his sanity. The terror finally seized him, and he began to run. He did not have the slightest idea of where he was going except away; he did not know what direction that was except straight in front of him as fast as he could. His trunk, floating somewhere behind him, extremely haphazardly, careened into a tree, splitting open and spilling its contents everywhere. He did not stop for it, though. He kept on running, desperate to get away.  
  
His thin frame, not equipped for this sort of thing, soon began to submit its various vetoes on what was happening. His legs were searing with pain, and his lungs were seizing up. The physical reality soon overpowered the mental anxiety of his fear – he could not run forever.  
  
So he walked. He walked until it was light, then after it was light, he walked on until it was dark again. He had no idea where to find food, or what was edible, so he just kept walking. He couldn't find a river or stream, so he just kept walking. His vision and mind started to lose focus, but his legs kept moving, one in front of the other.  
  
He knew that if he did not find food, water, or sleep soon, he might as well have turned his own wand on himself with _Avada Kedavra_ and been done with the whole business.  
  
That was why he was out here, was it not? To escape those he betrayed. To escape Lord Voldemort. To escape death.  
  
Escape, yes. Great escape plan, he thought to himself. It's much better to die out here, exhausted as all hell, dirty like a little mudblood, and pine needles poking me in all sorts of inappropriate places, yes, much better than clean, dignified (as possible), and in my best furs. You know, Igor, he said to himself, that's what I like about you. _Always_ thinking.  
  
He knew his situation was getting desperate. His mouth, long since dried out, was filled with his swollen, useless, dry tongue. His legs shook beneath him, exhausted. Strange colors, not native to the forest surrounding him, began to dance before his eyes.  
  
He tried to lick his lips, but found that his tongue had turned into a block of wood. He glanced down at his legs, only to discover that they were gone and had been replaced by clouds and rainbows.  
  
He did not notice when he collapsed on the cool forest floor.  
  
Starbursts of color made him squint his already-closed eyes. "Oh, boy," he mumbled to himself, falling into oblivion.  
  
Then his eyes opened, feeling like rusty tin cans, to the strangest scene he'd ever seen.  
  
The walls all around him were once white, but had turned an aged yellow. He was lying on a hard bed, the sheets tucked so tightly around him that he could not move. His arms lay outside of the sheet, but when he looked at the crook of his left elbow, a wave of nausea threatened to overtake him, and he nearly retched. There it was, black and disgusting as ever, still throbbing intermittently. The spot that wouldn't wash off. But that alone wouldn't have been enough to shake the nerves that Igor thought to be made of steel. Protruding from his arm was a particularly nasty-looking yellow hose. Indeed, this object was embedded in his skin, inexplicably. He wanted to reach over and pull it out.  
  
A woman wearing a white dress rounded the curtain surrounding his bed, and he called to her.  
  
"Woman, get this thing –" But he stopped, mid-sentence, for it dawned on him that she and everyone else around him were muggles. Muggles! What did they think they were doing to him? What sort of imprisonment was this?  
  
Dropping the thought of her from his mind, he struggled into a seated position, and, gritting his teeth, started to remove the offending hose himself.  
  
Strong, authoritative yet feminine hands restrained him, and he struggled against them.  
  
"What do you think you are doing?" They both asked each other in unison.  
  
"I need to get out of here. Now!" he said, mustering up his old authority.  
  
"You need to do no such thing, sir. Now just sit back, and relax, and we'll get you fixed up in no time. You need your rest," said the stoic nurse, pushing him back into the bed.  
  
"No, you don't understand! I need to go!"  
  
"And where exactly do you plan to go, in this state?" She gestured to the bandages scattered about his thin frame, which he had not noticed before.  
  
"I need to get back! Back to my... I need to get back to my... my people..."  
  
Uncertainty and doubt took hold of him. Where did he have to go? To whom did he have to get back? There was a great number of people who wanted to see him, but he was sure that he did not return the feeling. In neither Diagon Alley nor Knockturn Alley would he find a friend.  
  
The nurse was right. He had nowhere to be, but right there. He slumped back onto the foreign bed, exhausted and defeated.  
  
"Oh, it's not so bad," chirped the nurse, "we'll take good care of you."  
  
The next volley of thoughts that went through Karkaroff's head had to do so very slowly, owning to the situation he was in.  
  
Yes, maybe they would take care of him, in their childlike, fumbling manner. But he was basically unharmed, and once rested, would be able to face the future. He had already surmised that he would find no protection in the wizarding world... and though stupid, the Muggles seemed friendly enough. Maybe they would take care of him, in many more ways than the nurse ever meant. Yes, they could – they could hide him – no one would ever imagine that Karkaroff would ever hide there. He could blend into the muggle world, living safe and peacefully until the whole storm blew over. Then, a triumphant return! How, he had not yet devised, but there was time.... there was time.  
  
He smiled to himself and let the nurse tuck his sheets back in around him. He would wait. 


	2. The Fight Begins

Chapter 2: The Fight Begins   
  
Lying on the dingy bed, Karkaroff finally took notice of the beating that his body had taken. Bandages covering scrapes and cuts dotted his body, and his legs, chest, and head all throbbed like a drum line. He felt as if his entire body had been put in an enormous vice and squeezed like a lemon. He was dizzy with pain. He closed his eyes, willing it all to end.  
  
Suddenly, there were images and colors floating in front of his eyes, like a 360-degree panoramic movie. Jugglers, muggles with strange bubble-head charms and white suits, giraffes, and strange men with makeup on and big cones attached to their mouths, and all the time this incessant shouting and rampaging through Igor's mind. He tried to hide himself underneath a multicolored tent he found beside the double-headed bovine creature, but he only succeeded in falling down an endless hole made of white marble and mirrors. He was falling, falling. His hands slid down the slippery walls; he could not stop himself.  
  
With a jolt, he realized that he was in fact back in his old room on Hellbent Lane, in the house where he grew up. It was all just a long, long dream. He was never in that strange yellow room, he never got lost in that forest, and he never was a professor at Durmstrang. Just a dream, he told himself. Just a dream.  
  
He screamed. He screamed until the echoes had filled the world and his head. He could not take this, he could not understand these hallucinations, he wanted OUT! Out of his childhood room, out of his body, out of his own mind.  
  
He collapsed on his Magical Creatures of the Sea bedspread, utterly exhausted. He no longer cared what happened to him, as long as he didn't have to think about it.  
  
He watched, mystified, as his bedroom door opened to reveal his father. His father had died seventeen years ago. He watched as his dad, holding a bottle of vodka in his right hand, proceeded to rifle through Igor's old schoolthings with his left. He picked up Igor's first wand, much too small for him now, held it backwards, and poked clumsily and drunkenly into the air.  
  
His father, while knowing that his wife was a witch, never understood her. Igor suspected that his dad, even after years and years of marriage, never even believed in magic. It was not malevolence that led to this, rather, it was an effect of the mass quantities of alcohol that he consumed. Nearly permanently drunk, once Ilya explained to him her family, her past, and her heritage, he would accept it without question and forget it without hesitation. Igor could not recall a 24-hour stretch of time when his father was not amnesiatically drunk. It was only a matter of time, then, before Aleksei forgot why he was wearing this plain-looking gold ring on his left hand, or who these strange people were in the photographs in his wallet.  
  
Karkaroff remembered the day he understood the difference between Muggles and Wizards. It was the day that his drunkard father did not come home. He was six years old.  
  
Looking at his father now, he realized that his grudge against Muggles had not subsided. He hated this ratty, stupid Muggle, now playing with his childhood things. He wanted to transfer all the pain and rage he felt towards this scum onto his skull with a chair, or his desk, or anything he could lay his hands on.  
  
As he jumped up, reaching for his father's jugular, the floor came out from under his feet, threw him on his back, and took him several years forward and a hundred miles distant.  
  
He now saw his mother, prodding the breaded veal with her wand, wondering if it was done.  
  
Another queasy traveling experience, and he was entering his first year at Durmstrang, cold because his mother could not afford good furs, bullied every day because his father was a stupid Muggle. He was a filthy mudblood, and he hated his father for it. He hated him and all Muggles. He hated his classmates for hating him. He hated his mother for marrying his father. And he hated himself, for being powerless against it all.  
  
More traveling. Him, sitting alone in the Brasov foothills, smiling for the first time since his father left. He had his wand in his hand, and at his feet he had a pile of insects, all disemboweled. He was laughing.  
  
More colors flashed before his eyes, and he saw himself, with his first group of friends, talking earnestly. They were plotting something – a first-year, foul little Muggle that thought she could be a witch – she needed some teaching. They'd be happy to oblige...  
  
Then – he did not want to watch, he willed it to end – the young Igor did not know how it had happened, but suddenly he was in much deeper than he'd ever bargained for. He was scared. Those first ones, they were sport, they were child's play compared to the horror that he was facing. He could not turn back, he could not go forward, and he was staring at the first murder he'd committed for the Dark Lord.  
  
They were all so much stronger and more sure of themselves, the others, they got him into this, he cried to himself. Yes, yes they did, he answered, but you were the one who spoke the curse. It was your wand that pointed, and your mouth that uttered _Avada Kedavra_. It is your fault. It is your guilt.  
  
The pain of that memory physically wrenched him out of his hallucinating stupor, and another scream left his murderous lips. The nurse unceremoniously stabbed a sharp metal thing in his arm, and Karkaroff blacked out once more on the dingy bed.  
  
Igor Karkaroff, bloodline purist in theory, mudblood and mugglehater in practice, was released from the hospital into the Muggle world some days later, pronounced healthy.  
  
He had had several days in the hospital to mull things over and come up with a plan of action. He would hide in this labyrinth of muggles some called London, for not only did he have nowhere to go in the Wizarding world, no one would ever suspect the known Death Eater and muggle-hater of hiding there.  
  
After leaving the hospital, he found a deserted alleyway, conjured a weather barrier and a feather bed, and snuggled down into the black silk sheets for the night. Despite the fact that the barrier leaked at the seams, he slipped into a dreamless sleep.  
  
He awoke abruptly, engulfed in a bright light shining down upon him. 'Have I died?' was his first thought; 'What the hell?' was his second. 'If I am dead,' he questioned on the third go-around, 'then why are all these people standing around me looking so angry?'  
  
When he finally came out of his groggy stupor, he realized that a strange, muggle-crafted, directional light-emitting device was pointed at him.  
  
Someone was growling, "You can't stay here, son. You're gonna hafta shove off. Keep moving, keep on moving."  
  
After making sure he had no filial relationship with this man, Igor made a show of lifting up his mattress and glanced over at the man who seemed to be in charge.  
  
He was wearing blue all over, with a great deal of things tied to his waist. Something silver sparkled at Igor in the lamplight from near his breast pocket. For all his gruffness, he seemed to be a pleasant man. Very slow, but friendly. Just the man he was looking for.  
  
"Say, sir," this last word took a considerable effort to say to the lowly muggle, "I'm in a real tight spot. Can I talk with you alone?"  
  
He felt the dirty muggle's eyes travel over him, sizing him up.  
  
"Yeah, sure – I'll meet you guys," he turned to his miniature posse, "by that lamppost."  
  
The herd of even slower-looking men turned and ambled over to the indicated post like sheep. Karkaroff, after making sure they were out of earshot, turned back to the man in charge.  
  
"Thanks a heap. You see, I'm a skilled, useful man, down on his luck. Is there any way you could maybe help me out? You know..." he implied, setting down his mattress.  
  
"Well, I really wish I could..." but at a whisper from Karkaroff, the man's eyes drifted out of focus.  
  
"You were saying?" he prompted.  
  
"Yes, yes, sure." The man stuck his hand toward Igor. "Welcome to the team."  
  
"Now, why don't you call your men back over here and you can explain the whole thing to them? They can work out all the details for you, yes?"  
  
And with that, Karkaroff was hired onto the London Police Force.  
  
Training went quite smoothly, for Karkaroff was both skilled and practiced in the art of pretending he knew what was going on when in fact he was completely in the dark. Most of his training was learning silly rules and laws – not needing to know any of that stuff, he distracted himself with remembering his favorite muggle-torture games.  
  
During those first few weeks, he had discovered something profound to distract him. This was to the great fortune of his sanity, which was balanced precariously at that time.  
  
He would have swallowed a sphinx whole before he ever would have thought that the muggles had had it in them. He marveled at how a race of people so bumbling, so inept, and so clumsy could create something that was so elegant, functional, and deadly. He was not a man easily swayed, but after seeing the beauty that the muggles had engendered, he was forced to alter his former beliefs about them. He had discovered guns.  
  
He had been stubbornly unimpressed with everything at the Academy up until the moment that he held the Desert Eagle in his hand and pulled the trigger.  
  
He felt the hammer make contact with the bullet, he felt the internal explosion, the kickback force, and the barriers of his narrow, magic- centric mind exploded with the gunpowder trapped in the steel of the bullet. He grokked the movement of the projectile through the barrel, then through the air, being freed.  
  
And then, midair, he tweaked it – he nudged it a tiny bit, off of the path governed by physics and aerodynamics, and onto one governed by something much more powerful – Igor Karkaroff.  
  
His chief, staring disbelievingly at the perfect bulls-eye ripped out by Igor's bullet, asked, "Are you sure you've never done this before?"  
  
Karkaroff just smiled at him, too high on what he had experienced to destroy it with words, feeling the weight of the Eagle still in his right hand.  
  
For the first time in many, many years, Karkaroff felt truly, deliriously happy.  
  
Months of training went by, with Karkaroff escaping to the shooting range whenever possible. He had developed a feeling towards this phenomenon that could only be described as love. He continued in this pursuit, feeling free, for once, until something happened that made Karkaroff realize he hadn't distanced himself from the Wizarding world as much as he had thought. Unexpectedly, during the middle of another useless lesson, this one on "Breach of Conditions of Consent Concerning Reasonable Use of Force" or some rubbish like that, Igor happened to glance up, and saw one of the people he wanted to see the least in the entire world. If he was not number one on the Most Wish I Could Die Burning With the Fire of a Thousands Suns Before I Had to See Him Again List, he was at least in the top ten.  
  
That sleazy blonde hair and stupid black mink cape were recognizable anywhere.  
  
Karkaroff instinctively dived beneath his desk, but peeked out to see what that racist, arrogant bastard was doing in a place like this.  
  
Then he looked down at himself, but didn't let his logical half even begin to ask him that same question.  
  
Lucius was speaking to the chief of police about something. Wait, correction. Lucius was speaking at the chief of police about something and was holding his cane at a funny angle, pointed at him. The chief was nodding dumbly at whatever Lucius was saying, and was looking blankly off into space.  
  
Snatches of their conversation reached Karkaroff beneath his tiny wooden desk, but all he could make out was silent...petunia...' Karkaroff knew that they weren't talking about flowers. They were talking in code, those horrible, rotten, scumbags! And he had just started to forgive the chief for being a muggle, too! Oh, if he only knew what they meant by 'petunias' – that was the key.  
  
His snorts of anger and frustration drew the attention of those classmates who had not already turned to watch the epileptic psycho underneath the desk.  
  
Lucius seemed to be satisfied with their discourse, and he turned to go, briefly wondering what all of the Junior Cops were staring at. Igor busied himself with inspecting the linoleum beneath him, feeling rather revolted at the collection of dust, hair, and flakes of skin that he found.  
  
Click, click, click. He heard Malfoy's overly polished shoes tapping out his slow, graceful steps out the door.  
  
After it had snapped shut, a weight like a neutron star dropped in his stomach. They knew – he'd been found out! Found out! His plan had failed! The stupid muggles had sold their information to the Dark Lord, and now they were coming to kill him! Kill him! Ha! Petunias, his pet hippogriff! He was the flower, he was the key, and soon he would be dead.  
  
Panic seized his heart as the once-unthreatening face of his chief (he wanted to hurl! all that degradation and humiliation for nothing!) poked underneath his desk, with a few remaining, unmistakable traces of the Imperius curse on it.  
  
"Alright, there, son?" he asked, slowly and deliberately.  
  
Alright? Why did he care, the two-faced cheap sell-out?  
  
"Son?"  
  
"Um...well...yessir. Sorry, sir."  
  
But he was onto them. It was all part of their plan. They knew that they couldn't take him down now – not even the entire British Army could take him down unless they caught him off his guard.  
  
But he knew what they were up to, he smelled their game. He just needed to stay two steps ahead of them, at all times.  
  
And, he thought with a snort that distracted the class again, he knew what that required. As one man with only half a nose, thanks to him, was so fond of repeating, "CONSTANT VIGILENCE!" 


	3. Prophesy

Chapter 3: Prophesy

He stealthed around the police station for the next few weeks, hoping to catch wind of their plan. He trusted no one, and jumped at small noises around him.

His vigilance paid off, however, when, on his way back from the loo, he collided with his chief and a thin, horsey-looking woman in the hallway. The woman looked disgusted with Karkaroff's insolence and strange appearance, and also with the preposterous situation she found herself in.

"I'll have you – all of you – brought to justice! This is an outrage! If my neighbors see me…" Her shrieks died down as the chief steered her down the hallway, towards the interrogation rooms.

"Now, now, Petunia, this won't take but a moment. If you'll just cooperate…"

"Cooperate?! COOPERATE!?..."

But Karkaroff did not hear the rest of her tirade; alarm bells, no, alarm sirens were going off in his brain too loudly to hear anything else.

When the door to the interrogation room clicked, locking in his chief and the petunia, Karkaroff pulled a 180, and, closing the door to the adjoining room behind him, he tore off the grill to the ventilation duct, shoved his small frame into it, and slithered through the narrow passage until he could hear their voices, loud and clear.

From their conversation, Karkaroff knew that the Chief was nervous about something; he was not eager to start the interrogation; he was stalling for time. The petunia, on the other hand, was outraged at being so humiliated – in front of the entire population of Privet Drive, no less! – and was impatient to get the interrogation done with, get out, and call her lawyer.

It became apparent what the Chief was waiting for when Karkaroff heard the door open and close again. He knew who it was immediately.

"Ah, there you are. We're ready."

Karkaroff had a nearly unsuppressable urge to vomit when Lucius began to speak.

"Well, well… Petunia Dursley. It's been long, hasn't it?"

The vomit quickly changed to an audible snort of incredulity. How in Beelzebub's name did the great xenophobe and muggle-hunter Lucius have acquaintances with muggles? What was he playing at? His nervous fingers found their way to his goatee, twirling, waiting.

"_Lucius_." She spat out his name, contempt written in every syllable. She was no longer hysterical; her voice had become less horsey. "You…you…you spawn of the devil! I never thought that I would have to see your greasy face ever again, after you…"

She stopped dead. He heard Lucius' shoes tapping across the floor, the slight squeak of a metal chair, already occupied, being leaned upon. Then he heard the unmistakable, joyous sound of someone's face being spat in. After a yelp of disgust, he heard the slightly less joyous sound of a woman's face being slapped.

"And now that we've got that out of our system, Petunia, you're going to tell me something."

"Like hell I will, Lucius."

"Oh, you will. Tea?"

An incredulous silence from Petunia was followed by a stubborn silence; this was followed by the sounds of tea being prepared. Liquid being poured into a glass, then a quiet, almost inaudible uncorking, and two singular droplets falling into the cup. Karkaroff heard more nondescript scraping and clinking, then the sounds of some serious non-consensual tea drinking.

"I know your game," she hissed. "I heard what you put into that tea. You can go to hell, you can. I won't drink it."

Karkaroff was taken aback. How would this muggle know, this dirty, filthy muggle – how would she know about Veritaserum?

Lucius sighed. "I shan't; you shall." He turned away, talking to the rapt wall of concrete. "Petunia, I want to be here as much as you do. I'm not too keen on these old Hogwarts reunions – I had my fill of you people during those seven years. Now, when you've drunk your tea, things will go much more smoothly, and I can get out of here. _Imperio_."

She drank, and he turned back towards her. "Tell me what protections Dumbledore has put in place for Harry Potter – tell me what protection he has at Privet Drive."

The ventilation duct gasped quietly. There was a _pop_, and both Lucius' and Petunia's faces shot towards the vent in the wall. They both knew the sound of a Disapparation, having learned the difference from Severus' father in second year. That was the year that the Headmaster had sent her home. The year that she had to watch her sister, the beauty who everyone noticed, who overshadowed Petunia, who always got higher marks and cuter boys, she had to watch her get back on the Hogwart's Express after the winter holidays, leaving Petunia standing alone, ragingly jealous, on Platform 9¾.

Karkaroff's knuckles were white and blood was dripping from where his fingernails were digging into his fists. He was furiously pacing his cubicle, the top of his head poking out above the cushioned walls.

'Petunia Dursley? _Harry Potter?_ And not a word, not one _single_ word about the great, elusive Igor Karkaroff? How could this be? How could the Dark Lord be so negligent? Not that he wanted to be found out, of course – but, even so… He was a Death Eater on the run – he deserted the Dark Lord! Was he so insignificant?' His enraged mutterings filled the air with ozone, the taste of magic, and the tip of his wand crackled and sparked angrily.

His mutterings grew steadily quieter and less vehement until finally he had dug his head far enough out of his swamp of self-pity to realize that he was missing the best part of this little interview. He forced himself to slither back into the duct with ears pricked.

It sounded as if Petunia had been talking for some time. Her voice was monotonic. She had drunk her tea.

"And that's why we have to endure the arrogant, insufferable, magical little brat every single summer without relief. Because his sister's blood, the blood that protects him, runs in my veins. That's why summer is the very very worst time of year."

"Petunia, you haven't told me anything the Dark Lord hadn't already guessed. So far, you've been a useless, rambling, horse-faced mudblood, and now I will get something useful from you, even if it destroys you!" No audible reaction from Petunia. "Now – before the Dark Lord's…before the slight hitch in the Dark Lord's plan 15 years ago, there was a prophesy made about our dear Harry. Tell me what it said."

"I know of no prophesy, Lucius." Truly not knowing the answer to his question relieved for the briefest moment the effects of the truth serum, and she spat out, "_Fuck_ you."

"Hmm…while we're on the subject, Petunia, did you ever want to?"

Willing with all her body to keep her mouth shut, to say nothing, her mouth resolutely disobeyed her. "Yes."

"Disgusting, Petunia – you know I would have never touched a dirty mudblood like you." Lucius gathered up his cloak and empty vial, from the rustling and clinking that Igor heard, and said, "I'm not sorry to say that our interview is at an end, and less sorry still to inform you that the Veritaserum will not wear off until the next morning. Enjoy it."

Karkaroff was not shocked. He was done with being shocked. He lay in the cool duct, his chin in hand, twirling his goatee, and began to scheme. He, like the Dark Lord, had assumed that Dumbledore would put the necessary measures of protection in place for our dear Harry Potter – this was not news to him. However, his curiosity was thrown into gear by the mention of a prophesy. He wondered what was contained in it – he had an inkling as to how it related to the Dark Lord. Yes, that information could be very interesting to know, very… powerful. If it fell into the hands of a former Death Eater…

He was outside his interrogation room before Lucius Malfoy had finished talking with the Chief at the end of the hallway. He ducked into Petunia's room quickly – she was sitting in a cold, metal chair, eyes glazed, not moving. Perfect – vulnerable, ignorant – he could use her as Lucius failed to use her. If a letter showed up in Dumbledore's office asking for the specifics of the prophesy, who would Dumbledore expect was behind all of it? Petunia, of her own initiative and sleuthing? Ridiculous. Not even as likely as an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters. Karkaroff? No, because wasn't he dead? But the Dark Lord, yes, the suspicion would be placed on the Dark Lord and his cronies, and Karkaroff would be scot-free from suspicion and blame. That was why Lucius couldn't use Petunia to get information, and that was exactly why Karkaroff could.

As he raised his wand to bring her weak mind under his control, he realized that the combination of Veritaserum, _Imperio_, and a letter to Dumbledore could lead to a very, very bad situation.

_Dear Dumbledore,_

_I would never write to you, except for that this desperate Rasputin-type character (he says his name is Igor Karkaroff) is here telling me to ask you about this thing – Lucius Malfoy mentioned it as well – some prophesy? Please reply quickly, because I'm kind of under both of their controls right now, and, well…I find it rather inconvenient._

_Thanks heaps,_

_Petunia Dursley_

_P.S. I really want to snog Lucius. Still._

Hmm…maybe not just yet. He had time.

He was just as jumpy after he had uncovered the conspiracy as he was before. Slyly, he hinted at his chief about Petunia, and soon gathered that the chief had no recollection of anything to do with anyone named Petunia or anyone named Lucius. No surprise there, but it was still a good thing: less awkward questions about how he knew about this woman, why he wanted her back into the office… He silently thanked Lucius for doing him a big favor.

Three days later, he stood on the roof of the London Police Headquarters, watching the owl fly away north, bearing the one thing that Lucius could not get: the means to obtaining the Prophesy – _whatever that was_, Igor snorted. He lifted up his chin, threw his fists into the air, and, loosing all of the composure that Durstrang had spent eight years drilling into his head, screamed, "I fucking RULE!!!"

Dumbledore, the wrinkly old mudblood-lover, looked up from his parchment to see an owl he'd never seen before strutting about his office, importance oozing from his feathers.

"Alright, come here then. Let's see what you've got.

"Hmm…_Dear Dumbledore…thanks for you kind letter..._" he smiled to himself, remembering the Howler he had sent her, "_Hope Harry's doing well at Hogwarts…before he left...mentioned…silly, really…prophesy?_" He abruptly stopped skimming the letter, went back, and read it properly. When he was done, he sat back in his chair, fingers absently playing at his beard. He went to his Pensieve, added a strand, swirled it, and was not entirely surprised when he saw a face smiling up at him, the smile only a thin veil for the whisper of a smirk beneath it. "Hello again, Tom."

The owl returned to Karkaroff with the letter quickly, under threat of plucking. Greedily, he tore through the elaborate and rather girly seal that Dumbledore had put on it, and his eyes feasted on the letter. His vanity, his ego, and his pride all soared, knowing that the Dark Lord would give almost anything to read what he read in that moment.

_Dear Petunia,_

_ It's interesting you write me now about the prophesy – I was just studying over it. I understand that you are curious about it; however, I was unaware that Harry knew of its existence. In any case, here it is:_

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…but if, on their first meeting, neither is victorious, then his chance has passed, and hope is in vain...but there will rise another…born to a Death Eater, servant of two masters...it is in this wizard that resides the power to vanquish the Dark Lord...the power taken from the blood of the first boy...he is our only hope to vanquish the Dark Lord, for neither can live while the other survives..."

_Harry is doing well this year, hope the weather isn't treating you too terribly down there in __London__. _

_ All the best,_

_ Albus Dumbledore_

Igor Karkaroff, dressed in his blue uniform, sitting in a cubicle in the middle of the muggle world, betraying all that his kind had taught him, could not breathe. His body had gone numb and his vision had filled with black. The hands that held the letter began to shake, and he slid off his chair and onto the ground under his desk. The information he was holding had completely immobilized and incapacitated him. It could not be true. It could _not_ be true! After so many years, so many hard years of pain and submission – why had nobody, not _one_ person ever told him? Karkaroff's mother was a death eater…had been killed for her disloyalty…Harry Potter's one, single chance had withered, leaving…leaving…

Alone, on the floor in an unremarkable office building, Igor cradled his head in his hands and began to cry.


	4. The Death of Redemption

Chapter 4: The Death of Redemption

His chief was the one that found him hours later, huddled under his desk, hugging his knees to his chest. His breath came in ragged gasps and his eyes were bloodshot.

"Erm…uh…Igor?"

Slowly, his face turned towards the intruder. The chief had seen a broken man before; he was quite good at the interrogation game. But Igor's eyes that day, as they bored their nothingness into his soul, were a void so infinite and dead that they haunted him for the rest of his days.

He watched the chief scamper away, frightened like a little bunny. The fool. None here could ever fathom the gravity of the piece of parchment he held in his hand. They could never understand…

Once, in a moment of anger, he had let slip that he was favored by Lord Voldemort himself. "Lord Baltimort? Whazzat?" was the response, and it was all that Igor could do to not turn his Desert Eagle on the blaspheming moron.

It was an outrage! First, one of the most important Death Eaters flees, and not one single person even makes the feeblest of attempts on his life. And then, Igor Karkaroff obtains the one, single thing that the Dark Lord would give anything for, that would return Karkaroff to his favor, to his former position of delicious power. Still, not one person flinches. Not one person, in neither this world nor the world he left behind, not one person notices the great things that were achieved by Igor alone. Then, he, Igor Karkaroff, is revealed as the one lone soul in the entire universe who could bring about the downfall of the darkest wizard in all of the history of humanity, and they, the imbeciles that surround him, ask, "What's a Lord Baltimort?"

The injustice of it all welled up inside of him. He wanted to scream; he wanted to cry; he wanted to kill.

So, with vision obscured by bloodshot eyes, he grabbed his only good buddy, the Desert Eagle, and proceeded to take out his rage on the stick figures of the Dark Lord scrawled on his desk.

Karkaroff was not exactly known for his belief in Divination, nor for his adherence to prophetic declarations, but this sort of thing was something he couldn't ignore. He desperately wanted to, yes, but it was just too fitting. Fate, it was obvious, had chosen him, and Karkaroff could not escape that. Why did Lucius have to come into this _particular_ police station to interrogate Petunia? Why did he just happen to overhear them talking about it? The coincidences were far too poignant and numerous. He would just have to accept the destiny before him.

Sitting down heavily in his dilapidated office chair, Karkaroff's fingers played absentmindedly over the barrel of his Desert Eagle as the words of the prophesy continued to rattle around his brain. _"It is in this wizard that resides the power to vanquish the Dark Lord… he is our only hope..."_ The words foretelling his great destiny gave him a thrill of excitement and power. _"For neither can live while the other survives."_ _What a sour note to end such a good prophesy on_, he thought, now ghosting his fingers over the hammer, then over the trigger. _"The power taken from the blood of the first boy."_ His fingers stroked the bumpiness of the handle, the texture of power… _"The blood of the first boy."_ Blood…Harry's blood. _How in the name of Beelzebub am I going to get access to that? Under Dumbledore's extraordinarily long nose? Not a chance, not if I were Godoric Gryffindor… _He had unconsciously picked up the handgun, balanced it in his hand, felt its weight, and clicked the safety on and off, back and forth. _The blood of the first boy…blood… Click, click_ went the safety. _Blood…the blood that protects him…Because his sister's blood, the blood that protects him, runs in my veins. _ The memory hit him like a slap to the face. His hand tensed, his muscles squeezed, and the gun went off, straight through his computer.

"Petunia! Petunia's blood!" Karkaroff jumped up triumphantly, ignoring the hissing, fizzing smoke coming from the destroyed hardware on his desk. His co-worker in the cubicle next to him looked up quizzically.

"Petunia what? This doesn't have anything to do with that Lord Maltimore, does it?"

Without a single word, Karkaroff flung his arm over the cubicle wall, and shot the rest of his nearly full clip straight into his co-worker's monitor.

The chief was sitting at his desk, scowling at the paper in front of him. "Hmm…_Tax preparer, abbr…_ hmm…"

He jumped in his seat as the door to his office was thrown open.

"Karkaroff! What's an abbreviated word for a tax preparer?"

"CPA? But chief, no, listen to me. I need to get Petunia Dursley back in for more information immediately!"

"Petunia who? But she's never been in here before. Let me look up her file…"

He pushed aside his half-finished crossword puzzle and began looking through the boxes and folders that littered his office.

"No, chief, that's not necessary. I…it…um…" Karkaroff silently kicked himself for forgetting that he had modified the chief's memory, just like Lucius had, and to everyone else, Petunia Dursley had never been inside that police station.

"Nope, no record of her. Are you feeling okay, Igor?"

"No, I must be mistaken. Confusing her with someone else, you know. But we need to get her in here, right away."

"But why? The poor woman's never…" His voice trailed off and his eyes slid out of focus. "Sure. Right away."

Karkaroff held a newly packaged, self-loaded clip in his hand. He had a delighted smile on his face. Christmas had come early.

He congratulated himself on his ingenuity. It had taken quite some time to find a Muggle gun shop that would fill the twenty bullets he had with the… _red-colored water_ he kept in a vial. He had extra, just to be sure. The prophesy was rather vague on that point, _the blood of the first boy_. He didn't quite know how he should use it or where he should put it. He had filled them, dipped them, boiled them, and glazed them, and now they sat in his clip, waiting like choirboys in a pretty little row. It was very fitting, though. Voldemort would die at the hands of a Death Eater-turned-Muggle Policeman. He would die at the hand of a betrayer, by the unstoppable steel of a Muggle weapon covered in blood blessed by prophesy. The Dark Lord would not have prepared himself against such a death, would he? The prophesy must have known about his adventures in Muggle-land, and it must have known about his newfound love for firearms. Amazing things, these prophesies!

He was chuckling and there was a bounce in his step as he walked down the street towards the Underground. He was invincible, for Fate was with him. _The __Chosen__ One_. It had a nice ring to it.

As he boarded the train, he had only the vaguest of ideas of where he would find Lord Voldemort. He had once overheard the Dark Lord and Antonin Dolohov speaking of a house in Little Hangleton. Karkaroff could almost hear the nostalgia underneath his Lord's voice – it had made his skin crawl. Whatever made the Dark Lord nostalgic couldn't have been good.

He stepped off the train as it lurched to a stop at the dinky station in Upper Hangleton, and began the walk down the hill. The house was easy to find, being the biggest one around. But one look at its darkened windows revealed that it was deserted. Karkaroff sighed, and sat down upon the cobbled sidewalk outside of the fenced-off garden, gone to seed. The roses and the lavenders that once flourished had been overgrown and consumed by the rank weeds that choked them. The smell of rot was on the air. Rot and treachery. Guilt and blood. Fear.

_Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. _He heard slow, laborious footsteps closing in on him. He froze, afraid of what might be behind him. A heavy hand with thick, sausage-like fingers slammed down on his shoulder, smelling of badly cooked liver. Instinctually, as a result of the training that had been drilled into Karkaroff over the last year, he grabbed the arm, twisted it, and landed the intruder flat on his back, with Karkaroff's knee at his throat and his gun at his forehead. His wand lay forgotten in his pocket.

"Igor?"

"Goyle?"

"How did you…?"

"What are you doing here?"

"But…you were…we…"

"Where is the Dark Lord?"

"But…uh…you're dead!"

"Where is he?"

"Ungh!"

Karkaroff moved the barrel of the gun from Goyle's forehead to the inside of his mouth. "Tell me!"

"I-ghor…hwat ith at hing?"

_Honestly! _Thought Igor as he swapped his Desert Eagle for his wand. _I'm living in a world of imbeciles! _

"Ok, Goyle, let's try this again. Where is the Dark Lord?"

At that moment, the interrogation suddenly became unnecessary. Simultaneously, forgetting their situation, they both yelped as a searing pain bit their upper forearms and spread across their bodies. Karkaroff rolled off his perch atop Goyle, and closed his eyes against the drab nighttime sky, willing the pain to end. When it did, Karkaroff was ready.

Goyle's blank stare met Karkaroff's steely gaze, and with a _pop_, they both Disapparated.

With another _pop_, Karkaroff Apparated in a well-lit hall, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He was straddling a golden, protuberant object that continued and spread out between his legs. Something very sharp was poking into his rather fragile backside. _Completely botched. Again. __Prokliatie i vylchica._

He shifted uncomfortably, wondering what he had landed on. Twisting around very gingerly, he discovered the source of the sharp pain behind him – a centaur, with bow and arrow, pointing straight into his buttocks. And underneath him, he discovered, was a vapid-looking witch. With a glance to see if the vast hall was empty – he wanted no witnesses – he carefully climbed off of the statue, using what looked like a goblin's head (although the look on its face clearly ruled this out) as a stepstool.

Now that he was here, wherever this was, it took considerable effort to steel his nerve once more. He unholstered his Desert Eagle and held onto it like a pillar of support. It was his redemption; it was his salvation. This muggle contraption would take down the darkest wizard of all of time.

Every muscle in his body was tensed, tiger-like, ready to spring. He was balanced between action and submission, between the past and the prophesy, between faith and fear.

The safety on the Desert Eagle clicked off.

"VOLDEMORT!" The cry left his lips as a challenge, as a thundering, echoing heroic summons. The name pealed off the walls of the hall; it searched out the corners, rocketed down the length of the blue ceiling, and shattered the windows. He was here to bring the world to its end.

The scene played out in front of Karkaroff's eyes as though watching through a glass window far away. He saw as the two formidable wizards exchanged words, fear in neither of their eyes. He saw the Dark Lord languidly draw out his wand from his robes, and almost lovingly caress it. He saw as Karkaroff, unseen by the other, grip his Desert Eagle equally lovingly. He saw Karkaroff, in one fluid motion, twist his thin frame away from a flash of green light, then round on the Dark Lord, gun pointed at heart.

"For my mother." He whispered, then pulled the trigger, sending bullet after bullet to their destiny. Bullets made holy by the prophesy, by the blood of the Potters, by the word of Dumbledore, by the sacrifice of his mother, and by the betrayal of his father.

"For myself. _Avada Kedavra_."

Green light consumed Igor Karkaroff, and the confusion left his eyes as his small body hit the dark wood floor.

Dumbledore closed his eyes at the sight, realizing what he had done. _The blood of the first boy _was written on Karkaroff's arm in a deep, glistening red, shining defiantly up at him. It shone his deception; it shone his lies; it shone his sin back at him. He had sent him to his death. A miscalculation, lost in the melee, forgotten. Lies had turned to blood.

Forcing the pain back inside of himself, knowing, cursing the things that had been done in the name of goodness, of rightness, Dumbledore stood, his pain not the only pain, and not the most important. He must go check on Potter.


End file.
